1 posts from August 19, 2013

August 19, 2013

Josh Samuda and Will Davis are two young Dolphins players. They're both trying to impress coaches. They both had difficult moments during Saturday's preseason game against Houston.

But despite those things they share in common, the two took vastly different roads in the manner they handled the adversity of playing poorly and dealing with the apparent social media criticism that followed.

Davis, a rookie cornerback, gave up a long TD on fourth down in the second half and dealt with the bad play by actually apologizing to fans and promising better:

"I apologize for the double move, 4th and short and I jumped the double move. Glad I learned it now then later, learning everyday," Davis wrote on his twitter handle after the game.

Samuda, a starting right guard who gave up a sack of Ryan Tannehill early in the game and was sometimes good, sometimes bad throughout his time in the game, took a different approach.

He tweeted that people who were critical of his play didn't know what they were talking about and challenged them to try to do his job. He suggested that anyone that cannot do the job better than he does has no right to be critical of him.

The tweets were up for a day but Samuda apparently came to his senses or was told by Dolphins staffers how dumb that sounds so he deleted the tweets by Monday. He then tweeted:

"Thank you to every one who has showed me support. Also, I apologize for my tweets and to anyone who might of took offense to it."

Wise move because the original tweets made Samuda seem overly defensive given that he plays in front of 60,000 people every week and they pay to cheer or boo or judge his play. His coaches, by the way, also judge his play and are critical and none of them can play right guard for the Dolphins, either.

He would be better served concentrating on blocking defensive linemen than twitter followers.

Davis, meanwhile, continued to engage fans and seemed to disagree with the approach Samuda took -- perhaps not directly, but definitely on a philosophical level.

"iKnow you guys cant do what I do, but I know if you guys could, you'd take advantage of every opportunity. Thats why iWork hard," Davis tweeted.

"Don't like when people use the excuse, "if you were in my shoes" cuz I know many would kill to be in them. #phinsup#LoveLife."